Little voices, big noise

Ambi and Bindu Subramaniam on their family’s new educational TV show, and rapport with young music students

After teaching music to 10,000 school children across the country, the Subramaniam Academy of Performing Arts, popularly known as SaPa, is ready to take on more. This Tuesday, its founding family – acclaimed violinist L Subramaniam, and his singer-songwriter-pianist children Bindu and Ambi, launched a new educational TV show. So while a group of 10-15 kids, as young as three, learn lessons directly from these gurus inside a studio, other music aspirants can tune in to The SaPa Show with notebooks, and instruments in hand to practice along.

Sustain and shine

The idea is to “combat the way reality TV shows” are churning out young music stars, offer a “systemised music education”, and reach out to students who can’t access quality music schools, and teachers. Ambi explains, “With these reality shows, children become celebrities overnight, at the age of eight or nine. They tour for shows for a year, and are soon forgotten. The following year, another star kid rises, and goes out of sight. The cycle goes on. This doesn’t help the growth of a child as a music
artiste. I think it’s better to be a great artiste at 30 than a child prodigy at nine. That’s why on our show, we are offering a non-competitive environment and focusing on long-term education.”

The half-an-hour-long show is divided into three segments. The first one sees the senior Subramaniam discussing the basics of music, from Carnatic, Hindustani to Indian folk. Bindu and younger brother Ambi then take over, and teach the nuances of singing. Other eminent artistes will also walk in as guest faculties here, from time to time, to teach sitar, veena and Irish violin. The weekly show will conclude with a musical performance by one talented child, discovered from across India.

The focus at all times is to lay the foundation in one style of music, in this case Indian, and add global genres later on. Ambi adds that their “TV syllabus” is in sync with their three-year-old ‘SaPa in Schools’ curriculum.

Give and take

While teaching toddlers and teens is nothing new for the sibling duo, with 25-year-old Ambi admittedly being the “stricter” one, how different it was to give classes under the spotlight? Bindu shares enthusiastically, “I love kids. The naughtier they are, the better it is for me.

” In fact she was “shocked” by four-five-year-olds would behave like miniature professionals on set, always listening to the director and even sticking to deadlines. “But the moment they get out of the studio, they are back in their element. We once took them out to a pizza outlet for a birthday celebration, and these little monsters started running around, playing with balloons.”

Ambi, meanwhile, amuses us with stories from the shoot. “For the first five-seven minutes of the first episode, the kids were conscious, and rigid. Their parents must have told them who my father is, and that they should behave like good kids in front of cameras. When my father would ask a question, they started looking at each for clues. It was so funny. But we talked it out with them that it’s a normal classroom. Now they are comfortable.”

It’s not just the kids, but also Ambi and Bindu who are taking new lessons back home. “The kids teach us how to be on our toes all the time,” the latter laughs, and adds, “You have to keep all your lessons (about taalas, gharanas, to music legends) interesting, and of course, be ready to take on their random questions.” Ambi pitches in, “One size doesn’t fit all, after all.”

What is it like working with each other? Who takes a call on the creative differences? Ambi tells us they have practice, having worked together on music projects, and at SaPa “all the time”. Their rapport, therefore, is “seamless”. “We don’t plan much. We don’t divide work. Everything just falls into place,” he adds.

Next month, the duo will launch a new fusion music album, as part of their Indian-meets-pop, rock and jazz band, SubraMania. And before that, Ambi will cut his new classical album, Just Playing. Put together over two months, it features complex elements of Indian classical music and prominent artistes such as Guinness record-holding percussionist, G Satya Sai.